September 5, 2006

It's so annoying to feel forced into it! She's standing up and wearing a weird white jacket buttoned conspicuously at the waist as if to argue with those who said she'd been photoshopped into semi-svelteness. Now, she's sitting down, but in kind of a half standing position in front of a low desk, to give us more of a view of her torso. She's got a special white microphone to blend in with that white lapel. The first few stories are military, as if they need to drive it home that a woman can cover the manly topics.

Now she's interviewing Tom Friedman, who seems to really be trying to help by speaking extra quickly and smiling, beaming at Katie. They've got two armchairs angled together, with just enough room for Katie's bare, sinewy crossed legs.

The teaser going into the break is about gas prices, and we see the image of a gas pump nozzle, slowly rising, rather lewdly, I have to say, as if CBS felt the need to provide -- albeit symbolically -- the missing phallus.

After the break, there's an aggressively edited segment on oil. Lots of color and graphics and moving cameras and Shell logos gliding through space and guys yammering about hurricanes and whatnot.

Now the show veers into the female territory we were so worried about. That "freeSpeech" thing seemed to be the bridge. They're showing the Vanity Fair cover with the photo of the spawn of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise. The baby's name is Suri, and Katie -- Couric -- does the pun "Yes, sirree."

After the break, Couric introduces a "picture perfect idea" that combines travel scenery, kids -- orphans! -- and art. You have got to be kidding me. The artist is from Madison, Wisconsin, so I should be soft on this, but I'm not. Wait, this guy doesn't paint the portraits for the orphans. He gets American school kids to paint pictures of photographs of orphans. We're told the painters form a real connection as they stare at the photos, as is necessary in order to do the paintings. We're informed that staring into the eyes has a very special effect. What glop! And the privileged painter and the orphan paintee sometimes even become penpals. Arrgggghhhhh... I'm in pain from this one.

Now, Katie tells us coyly that she just can't figure out what her sign-off line should be. She shows clips of various real and fictional newsguys signing off and then tries to enlist us in the fun of suggesting sign-off lines. "Log on to our website," she says. Log on. When you go to a website, are you "logging on"? See, I'm ready to be irked by anything! Well, let's go over there -- log on over there -- and see whether people are suggesting insulting sign-offs, which is what I would expect, which is one reason it's such a bad idea.

But why did they think it was a good idea? It's like a schoolteacher's "hands-on" assignment. Ooh, she wants to include us. It's so feminine to want everyone to feel included. But how about having an identity instead of asking us to supply one or offering to please us with whatever we want? You couldn't even write a sign-off line or, more aptly, you had to use the sign-off gimmick to make it seem as though this is some new interactive version of the news? What a grand step forward for women!

Checking the website, I see the suggestions aren't openly displayed, and you've got to provide lots of info to make the suggestion. So there won't be any fun and games there.

IN THE COMMENTS: Among other things, readers are suggesting sign-off lines. My favorite, by johnstodderinexile, is "This is Katie Couric, and I can't wait to read what you blogged about me."

101 comments:

I'm not watching. I also note that gas prices are going down currently. I guess that doesn't fit the script, and it clearly won't change the reporting anyway. After all, Big Media has its narrative to deliver, no matter who is delivering.

It sounds fun, though, the way you describe it. Sort of the news and Letterman combined. I wonder if the last five minutes will be some new band, or perhaps a fresh new comic...

All I can say is the Couric gimmick seems to be working. When I got back from work, roommate's girlfriend was watching it. Saw the last part of it, it seemed pretty good. Liberal slant aside, they were trying to run the broadcast with a deliberate casualness.

My guess is the novelty will wear off, might snare some Today viewers to the CBS evening news, and that's about it.

Too much mascara and eye shadow (why do some women insist on turning their eye sockets into black pits?), and she's got to watch the head-bobbing. I know it's unnatural, but given the tight camerawork on single-anchor evening newscasts, her nodding at everything she said as she said it made this viewer seasick. That cloying tone of voice is bad enough.

My original thoughts, upon hearing the decision to "cast" Couric in this role, was that it truly spelled the end of any credibility the MSM had for producing and reporting news. I still believe this.

Sadly, CBS had a chance. As painful as it could have been for their anchor, they could have decided to learn from the phenomenal success (whether you agree with them or not) of Fox News and report the news with, if not a conservative slant like Fox, a middle of the road stance...they would have gained millions of viewers and truly carved a niche for themselves, and might have even given a lift to network news. But heaven knows what I must have been drinking while thinking that...

Notice how CBS used Afghanistan story in first segment; then Katie told Freidman that Afghanistan was unraveling, which in no way was established or even attempted to be proven in the first segment. This is terrible, terrible. A skunk is not going to change its spots. I was overwhelmingly disappointed, expecting that Katie might repudiate fake but accurate, instead we got more of the same.

ok you chuckleheads...where do you get your news? o'reilly? greta? certainly not sean? rush? the convicts (north et al)?

where do you get it then? frankly it was pretty good and when you decry it, remember that 15+ million just got it from cbs alone and it would be intellectually honest to tune in just to see what is what.

but what precisely is the alternative? tell me. inquiring minds want to know....ohgod..the enquirer! that's it. that and entertainment tonight...ohmygod...doomed..doomed i say!

From print and online sources. Broadcast news is good for nothing beyond entertainment value, and frankly its a show I've already seen before. Real information sources have references, or better yet hyperlinks.

2. The great part about hdhouse (unless he is truly a masquerader, which would be genius) is that he spells things wrong and gets basic facts wrong all the time (e.g., Dixiecrats were Democrats; Nixon was not impeached; Iran-Contra did not involve Iraq). However, and this is the kind of chutzpah that I admire, he thinks the conservatives here are a bunch of morons.

She is a perfectly likable person. If the evening news is not for serious news junkies, as seems to be the great majority opinion here, then what is the grand objection to Ms. Couric as anchor?

Personally, I don't watch the evening newscasts - they are dinosaurs to me. But the big objection of many of us to Katie, wherever she works, is that she is knee-jerk left-wing and an unapologetic anti-Christian bigot.

I didn't watch the show, even for entertainment value, since I simply don't care what's on CBS any more. That train has sailed...or something like that.

As someone above said, I prefer my news with hyperlinks. The constant mischaracterization of news stories I've seen where the reporter's summary doesn't seem to accurately reflect the underlying facts (now that we have a chance to see them with the web) makes me skeptical of all "take my word for it" reporting. I prefer to see the facts myself and do my own mental summarizing.

As to her sign-off, maybe she can end with: "And now I'm off to the gym."

wisjoe said: "She is a perfectly likable person. If the evening news is not for serious news junkies, as seems to be the great majority opinion here, then what is the grand objection to Ms. Couric as anchor?"

I'm reacting -- obviously -- to the hype. They made a big deal about the first woman solo network news anchor, so I felt compelled ot check it out. I didn't expect the network news to be good. I haven't watched it for years, but I was interested to see how they'd work the woman angle. It's not really anything against her personally, but against the way networks do things and the the attitude they have about women. It's absolutely appropriate to react to that. What little there is in my post about they way she looks is about the way they presented the female body to us, not about her looks. If I was going to be catty, I would have made remarks about her skin and hair and so forth. (Okay, I did call her legs sinewy. It looked like she wasn't wearing stockings. I though that was not right.)

Not intending to be contrarian, but your first paragraph on her show is primarily about what she is wearing and how she is positioning herself. The next paragraph remarks about her apparently sensual interview with Tom Friedman and her bare, sinewy legs. Next, we have a reference to a missing phallus.

To be fair, you seem to have a reverence for fashion that is not gender specific. (see reference to Spurlock's bad tie)

I do A LOT of criminal defense work, so I deal with irrational, poorly clothed, jerks on a regular basis. Seeing a pleasant and highly successful woman reach a pinnacle in her career is something I just enjoy. I'll give her a few months before I start getting too critical.

Does anyone remember commenting on Bob Woodruff's clothes or Gibson's (what is his first name)?

What struck me about the "help me think of a sign-off" contest was not so much that they were making a contest out of it, but that she would be so unserious as to admit that she actually spent time thinking about what to say - and then couldn't even come up with anything.

Can you imagine Edward R. Murrow or any of those other serious journalists of the past going on the air and saying "I couldn't think of a sign-off"? The frickin' sign-off isn't supposed to mean diddley-squat anyway! Just do the job well and say "good night". Personally I would find THAT very refreshing.

I suppose she could sign-off for the next few years with "I STILL haven't thought of a sign-off," and then giggle. That would seem about right.

Wis Joe: I think you miss the point. I don't want to belabor this, but briefly:

1. The major news networks apparently still believe they are delivering some great news product. Fine. Not true, but fine.

2. Clearly, CBS has as its theory that the news delivered by a perky person with sex appeal is the way to go. Fine, but does not necessarily go with #1.

3. What Couric reported as the "news" itself was not much of what we would expect to be news. It was, to judge from reports, mostly a cross between Entertainment Tonight and a softer, gentler version of the news skewed toward women, complete with the middle class feeling good about itself by painting the orphans human interest story at the end. Fine bu definitely does not go with #1.

So, there are some integrity issues here. Which is it? Is CBS about "the news"? Is Katie Couric about sex appeal or about delivering the news? Is what is being covered really the news in terms of what is generally agreed to be historically important right now, or is it some touchy-feely newsy thing aimed at trying to obtain audience share?

I haven't watched network news for years, but I did tonight. Aside from Katie's debut, I was reminded of how little time they have beyond selling products (commercials).

Just enough breaths left to take a pot-shot at Shell (Oil), declare Afghanistan (Bush) a complete loss, and ask TimesSelect's Tom Friedman to explain in 30 seconds why he's still lost in the multitude of variables.

But there was Katie, the very picture of too-early-in-the-morning perkiness, which I suppose is a victory for the weaker sex in the gender wars.

Where do I get my MSM news from? I end up listening to 5 min. ABC radio news segments "on the hour" several times a day, if I am not paying close enough attention to avoid them. Everything you need to know from ABC gets done quickly, and often somewhat entertainingly: who needs Katie Couric when you can listen to Sherry Preston sound like she's getting goosed about every 5 seconds? Or Ann Compton drone on every other day about how most of the American People now oppose the Iraq War, followed immediately by a poll which shows the opposite? Or, in honor of Ann Compton, another Journalist tell us about a 911 call involing a bee-keeper who made some basic mistake and ended up with about ten thousand bees in his house, and the bees then turned into "wasps", according to the Journalist? No, I'm sticking with the tried and true ABC radio show for all I need to know from the MSM nectarean nest. I've already got my honeys and my heroin[es], Sherry and Ann.

From Ann't blog and all the comments, it is not quite clear what the target audience is. Obviously (probably), not anyone younger than she. But the audience for network news is relatively old anyway, to that is probably just fine. The big question though is sex. Which sex is it aimed at. Overall, it seems to be aimed more at women, providing a softer, more personal, look at the nightly news.

And that would not be a bad target market to aim at. Let the men go to the other two networks. Of course, there is the problem that in a lot of families, watching the nightly news is done together, and this may alienate enough men that ratings drop instead of rise. But then again, it could work.

The problem though is that if they are aiming this at women, they seem to be misfiring a bit. For example, Ann's comments about Katie's legs looking bare. Maybe good for men, but bad for women, esp. women of the age that would be likely to be viewers. I think though that the white microphone is a dead giveaway that the show is aimed more at women.

On the other hand, it was her first night, and not surprisingly, they need to get some of the bugs out of it.

One of them is obviously the head nodding that Eugene pointed out. Sorry to stereoptype, but a typically female way of conversation and relating to people (read Deborah Tannen). Just apparently doesn't work in this situation. Maybe. Some of us are probably more sensitive to this - I know I am.

Thomas said... My original thoughts, upon hearing the decision to "cast" Couric in this role, was that it truly spelled the end of any credibility the MSM had for producing and reporting news...

Sadly, CBS had a chance. As painful as it could have been for their anchor, they could have decided to learn from the phenomenal success (whether you agree with them or not) of Fox News and report the news with, if not a conservative slant like Fox, a middle of the road stance..."

Faux News? Which program do you consider "news"? Serious question here. On Faux. What is the news program? Is it the top and bottom of the hour snippets with lip-glossed-to-death anchorettes speak with gravitas about jon benet with stolen CNN video framed in the background (yes Faux routinely steals CNN feeds and crops them)... seriously what is Faux News. I know of no such program.

Frankly, I know the Faux (News Corp) people pretty well and thier top down commitment to News is, well,....pathetic comes to mind.

Oh...and please tell me what is good about presenting news from a political/philosophical perspective? are you just admitting that every bit of gas that passes at Faux is biased. It is so perhaps you are telling the truth.

The thing that gets me is how much money goes into all this... and how many supposedly creative minds. You'd think they could come up with some sort of new approach (I don't even expect substantive!) Instead they're making a big deal just because it's a girl. BFD! They really earn that "dinosaur" label.

The problem with CBS News is not so much with Katie Couric. She will probably do as good or better a job as anyone (that they would have seriously considered).

The problem is that CBS News is still mostly the same writers, editors, producers, executives that destroyed the credibility the brand once enjoyed. Thus, the new Katie Era is like when any company puts an old, stale product into a fancy new box and plasters "NEW!! IMPROVED!!" on the front. It will get a lot of people to buy it once, some to buy it a few times, and a few will be fooled into buying it for a long time. But most will open it and quickly realize it's just the same old stuff they didn't care to buy previously, now in new wrapping.

I don't watch any news, or read the newspaper for that matter. I figure, if something important happens, I'll hear about it somehow. Case in point: yesterday, something important happened. Steve Irwin died. I heard about it. The system works!

KC lost me with her first report (on Afghanistan) but I do have a sign off suggestion. Considering the demographics of the CBS audience, how about: I'm Katie Couric ... older than dirt ... but younger than you. Stay verticle!

Then shouldn't she have had a contentious series of confirmation hearings in front of the Senate Democrats? People who mistreat, or are even rumored to mistreat, their underlings should be kept out of public life. That's a well set precedent.

Re: 'freeSpeech', it is common in geek world to 'camel case' words. First word is lower case, spaces are substituted with capital letters for any words. A Couric optimist could view this as a hat tip to the relevance of the blogosphere in the world today..

Loved .... LARA LOGAN. Missed Bob Schieffer who was gazillion times better than dipwad Dan. Nice to hear Cronkite's intro. Katie's.... ok so far, after all only one day.

CONTENT: It was Boring. Too soft for me (of the female persuasion) -- I was totally indifferent to most of it -- in fact, all of it except for Lara Logan as mentioned above.

I started watching again after Schieffer took the chair. He followed the Cronkite mode. Rather was schizo and inauthentic.

If they're going to do soft features, they should steal Jeannie Most (moost?) from CNN.

It's Okay to move away from the traditional format, but something's not yet 'there' -- and I sure hope, unlike Oakland -- that soon there will be a 'there there.'

The freeSpeech thing reminds me of what they do on CBS Sunday Mornings -- it works there, not sure about here, yet. Not looking forward to Rush Limbaugh. Ugh...Since I hate faux news, this is walking a thin line ...

If they bring Nancy Giles onto this segment of the Evening news, then I could manage to let it pass if she makes frequent appearances. Nancy is super brilliant, thoughtful.

Truly Hope it gets a little 'harder' or at least intellectually more challenging...too much to hope for?

I think after Katie gets her 'sea legs' she'll become less self-conscious. Geez what a lot of pressure.

I'm rooting for her, but hope it gets more of a news edge ... otherwise, I'm outa there

Mike said... hdhouse asked: "Faux News? Which program do you consider "news"? Serious question here. On Faux. What is the news program?"

Brit Hume's program.

NO NO Mike. I mean news. Like in a story happens, a reporter reports it as it happens..that kinda thing...no special visits from the beltway boys, no horowitz types, just a half hour or so of straight reporting..you know...we report..you decide? that kinda thing....just a thought. but brit hume? ahhhhhh no.

Which is to say, on every news story, I get the written-story depth that broadcast news can't provide, up-to-the-minute-ness that TV news can't match, and the ability to contrast stories from widely different sources to help ferret out mistakes, bias, and other anti-news.

If you're going to spend half an hour a day getting news, it utterly crushes TV news.

Since viewers disagree on the content and delivery of a nightly news cap, perhaps CBS should drop "news" from the show's name and call it "30 Minutes with Katie Couric." There would be no pretense about presenting a balanced view; fluff and "more feminine stories" could be included; and Katie's non-reporter make-up, apparel, or demeanor would be appropriate.

I don't watch Katie, or any network news, actually, but while channel surfing a little tonight (no cable or dish, we get 8 channels...)I happened across her & was shocked. Who is sabotaging her? Or is she actually having a say in her BAD hair, BAD makeup, & all she needed was a black pointed hat to complete that WITCH outfit she had on!!! My God! She should be the chic-est, hottest (looking) thing on the news, but YUCK. WTF is up with that???

I agree about Sherry Preston. She does not know how to control her voice. She is constantly breaking into a high pitched whine, and I switch her off. I'm much rather listen to Ann Compton drone on. She's more in control of herself.